


Give Up Forever

by AnnaLane



Category: The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Vampire, Angst, Delena, Depression, F/M, Love, Mabekah, POV Multiple, Post Season 2 Episode 22 - as I lay dying, Post-Season/Series 02 AU, TVD Alternate Season 3, Ten Years Later, Vampire Elena Gilbert, aus3, forewood, klaus is the bad guy, love is redemption, love saves us, struggling through life, tvd
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-19
Updated: 2018-01-28
Packaged: 2019-02-16 21:31:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13062558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnnaLane/pseuds/AnnaLane
Summary: Instead of going away with Klaus, Stefan turns Elena into a vampire and they go on the run. Only now Stefan is gone, Elena is damaged, and Damon is desperate to save her from herself. If only all Elena had to worry about was herself... Set 10 years after S2. AUS3. Language, violence, adult situations.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I first published this in 2011 and the complete story is on ff.net if you can't wait for my slow ass to repost it all. It is some of my earlier stuff, but I'm still really fond of it!

[ELENA, 1st]

I did the whole "Twilight" thing. Married the first guy I fell in love with, or rather, vampire. He was good and sweet, and he never ate humans. I even changed myself to be with him forever. I thought our fairy tale ending would work. It didn't. Not even a fraction of a lifetime had passed before I began to feel old and unhappy. I looked like a twenty year-old and my true age wasn't really that far off, but I began to feel bitter and resentful on the inside. But I tried to be happy for Stefan; I was still desperately in love with him.

But it's useless to try now that he's gone. I have nothing left to live forever for. I'm alone in a world that has forgotten me. No more family and no chance at one now that Stefan was gone. Just...perpetual solitary. It was the price of eternal youth. One of them, anyway.

You'd think I, of all people, would have known not to turn. My parents are dead. My biological parents are dead, one way or the other. My innocent aunt was murdered just because she cared about me. If I hadn't realized by then how much the world sucked, pun not intended, then shame on me. I deserve whatever endless torture the universe sees fit to bestow upon me.

I still write in my diary every day. It seems almost pointless, and these days every entry is starting to look the same. I write about how much I hunger for human blood, how I refrain from feeding on humans every day just to honor Stefan. How alone I am - not lonely - just alone. It feels like there's a difference.

And every day I ask, 'Is this the day I end my existence?'

And every day, just when I'm convinced this will be the day, the feeling that something's coming overwhelms me, and I must stop. It is too powerful. I don't know what it is, but I hope I will not have to wait long. This endless life is shredding everything about me. My memories, my dreams, my hope…


	2. That Feeling

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As I'm re-posting and attempting to edit, do you like the POV labels or should I stop and let you figure it out? I'd appreciate any feedback!

[Elena, 1st]

I was sitting in the parlor when I heard the knocking. If I were still human, it might have seemed ominous - the frantic, harsh banging. Once upon a time, I might have been scared.

As it was, I could only sit there, fearless and bored. But the pounding continued, and though vampires don't get headaches, they can still get annoyed. "Come in." I called out. "It's unlocked."

Damon rushed in, and he was so unexpected that it actually surprised me, but I recovered quickly. "Damon."

"Elena." His hair was a mess and he had a wild look in his eyes. He almost seemed out of breath, and he was clearly agitated. "We have to move quickly. If I found you, Klaus can't be far behind."

"Damon."

I tried to interrupt him, but he didn't listen. He moved to the window near the couch and moved the curtain to peek out onto the street. "I heard from one of my contacts that Klaus was close to discovering where the vampire who betrayed him and the Petrova doppelganger were hiding out. It took me a while to find you two. You hid well, but we need to leave. Now. Klaus can't be far behind."

"Damon." I stood, and finally caught his attention.

He stared at me like he'd never seen me before. "Elena." His face was a strange mix of emotions, and I couldn't read one of them. "You're a vampire." Well, I suppose I could read one of them, shock.

"What makes you think this isn't Katherine?" I purposefully filled my voice with dry, cruel amusement, the only way Katherine ever spoke. It disturbed me to realize that although that voice had once haunted my nightmares, now it sounded almost natural coming from my mouth.

He was still staring at me, and whatever emotion previously there was gone, replaced by joy. "Fool me once." He said, but I didn't understand and narrowed my eyes. He came closer to me, grabbed my shoulders and bent just a little to look into my face. "I would know you anywhere, Elena." He leaned closer, and with a detached curiosity I wondered if he would kiss me. I wondered if I would care enough to stop him, but he pulled away before we both found out. "How did it happen?" I opened my mouth, but he cut me off. "It doesn't matter. You can tell me the surely scintillating story as we are running for our lives." He let go of my shoulders and looked around. "Where is Stefan, anyway?"

"Not here." I said, and was shocked to discover the words broke as they came out of my mouth. I didn't know it would be hard to say them, I didn't know it would hurt. I thought that hurt had disappeared, along with everything else, long ago.

"Then where is he? It's a nice, family home you've got here, but we can't stay. It isn't safe." There was honest concern in his voice, in the downward twist of his mouth, in the brows drawn low in a slight slant, and in the shining of his eyes.

I smiled. "It is, actually. Safer than you'd think." The words I'd meant to be sarcastic and uncaring came out soft and sad.

"What are you talking about? It isn't safe." His arms rose an imperceptible amount, and by the way he drew them back, I knew it was involuntary. He had, just for a moment, been tempted to throw me over his shoulder and carry me out of here. He always did want to be the hero, the one who saved me, always.

"Stefan's dead." I said, with the emptiest voice I could muster, not sure whether I did it for myself, or for Damon.

He fell to his knees, "How?" He looked up at me, but I didn't meet his eyes.

"We were here, in this house." I paused, smiling bitterly. "We weren't expecting anything. It had been just like any other day." I had to pause again. "Klaus came. He killed Stefan. He was mad Stefan ran off with me instead of him - that Stefan broke their deal. Klaus ripped his heart out." Tears welled up when I remembered how Stefan's face had begun to blacken and whither, until it was unrecognizable.

I finally looked down at Damon. While before I couldn't decipher the emotions that were running across his face, this time I couldn't see anything in his face. He was completely unreadable. I didn't know if he was shell-shocked or empty or disbelieving. It unnerved me. "Damon?"

"Why are, why are you-?" His face cracked, shattered like plain porcelain on a marble floor, and I saw how he felt written on his face. I wish I hadn't. He was in pain, and tears were welled up in his eyes. "Did you get away?" He whispered.

"No." I wished I could break apart with him, show him I had felt that, too, but I couldn't.

"Then why-?" He asked, still looking up at me. He reminded me of a lost child looking for comfort.

Too bad I had none. "I think it was because of the way I looked at Klaus." I examined, of all things, my fingernails. It seemed to make telling him easier. "I was so horrified, you see, when I saw his face shrivel and break apart, like rotten cotton candy." I sighed. "Klaus saw, and instead of killing me, too, like he should have—like he planned, I'm sure—he decided that my punishment would be to live without Stefan, and he left." I sat.

* * *

 

[Damon, 3rd]

She sank to the couch as if all her strength had left her, and she could no longer stand. She smiled a smile Damon was beginning to hate, one he'd never seen on her face before tonight. It was not a smile at all, more like a grimace of pain, only empty. She continued with the story he thought she'd already finished. "He even tried to compel me not to kill myself. He must have been excited, because he didn't even notice I was on Vervain."

Damon pulled himself from his knees to sit next to her on the couch. He drew her into his arms, and noticed that she didn't react in any way. It was then he started to notice something was seriously wrong with her. She was different, broken.

It made him doubt that Klaus's suggestion didn't affect her. With the way she was acting, Damon had little doubt she was capable of, and even desired, suicide.

Damon had been alone these past few years. More alone than he had ever been when his brother had left with the girl they both loved. Her friends were just that - hers, not his - and they hadn't remained near him when she left. That wasn't what bothered him most though, the being alone, what bothered him most was how much he was bothered by being alone. Meeting Elena had changed him, and he wasn't sure to handle this now that she herself had changed. He knew one thing, though; he was going to save her. No matter what it took.

* * *

 

[Elena, 1st]

He pulled out of his embrace—since I wasn't holing him back it couldn't be called ours—and looked at me. He took my hand. He rubbed circles over my knuckles, but I didn't feel it. He looked down in surprise. My wedding ring. I think I had forgotten I still wore it. He took a deep breath and his eyes returned to my face. I didn't like the way he was looking at me. I especially didn't like not knowing what he was thinking. Before I could ask him what his problem was, he spoke. "Elena, come back with me to Mystic Falls." I was shaking my head before he finished his sentence, but he continued anyway. "Please. Help me kill the thing that murdered my brother. Your…husband." He choked the word out.

I was about to refuse him, to tell him that nothing could possibly matter to me anymore. After all, I just wanted to live my life in the quiet, alone, until I built up the courage to kill myself. But something stopped me. That feeling I get every day right before I'm about to rip the daylight ring from my finger in a patch of sunlight. The feeling that always stops me. Like I'm waiting for something. Only this time, magnified to an incredible intensity, so strong I had to catch my breath, though I didn't need air. I knew I had to go back to Mystic Falls.


End file.
